Unity Philosophy, Unity Religion

It seems that Unity is mostly about positive thinking. Doesn't this make it more of a philosophy than a religion?

Thank you for noticing! I cringe at the thought of people mistaking Unity for a religion.

True, we have "Christianity" in our church name, Christianity is a religion, and religions have synagogues, mosques, or churches, so confusing Unity Church of Christianity with a religion is easy to do, name-wise. Content-wise, however, we are, if anything, anti-religious, even while we bless all religions. We bless religions because there are huge numbers of people who are benefited by religions that work for them. We choose not to be religious ourselves because we know that our spirituality is what we are to develop, not our religiosity. Unity is a psychological philosophy, appealing to the scientific minded and the lovers of logic.

By foregoing logic and instead strictly adhering to a literal reading of ancient scriptures, religion can lead to psychological problems. Those primitive writings were crude blueprints for living way back then, in a time long before the circumnavigation of the globe, and even before the scripture writers knew they were living on a globe. Religion bends modern sensibilities to fit the mold of nearly stone age thinking. Religion does this amazingly well, which is rather scary, if you think about it. It is why otherwise modern Moslem males fly passenger jet aircraft into tall buildings in order to have 72 virgins all to themselves in a fantasized place called paradise. It is why otherwise loving Christians openly despise homosexuals, euphemistically calling their hatred "pity," and praying for the "repair" of gays and lesbians which, genetically, is no different than saying that all eyes should be brown, not blue or green. Judaism is a prime example of ethnocentrism and xenophobia, and all religions are repositories of bigotry and prejudice, making religious wars the majority of all wars fought. Do I sound critical? I am writing factual. The world would be a better place without religion.

No, I am not saying that the world would be a better place without Jesus! The itinerant preacher named Jesus was a spiritual philosopher, not a founder of a religion. Sadly, religion eventually appropriated all of the philosopher's popularity while incorporating only a smattering of the philosopher's teachings, thanks to the religionist named Paul. Nevertheless, without Paul we would not have the name "Christianity." Paul invented it and promoted it like no one else could, preserving it through a time of heavy persecution by other religions. In fact, that Christianity survived the first century of its existence at all is highly Darwinian-an assessment which true Christians would find appalling, since they believe that all species of animals on the planet were offloaded from a boat on the side of Mount Ararat. The truth is, Christianity represents survival of the fittest in an organization rather than in a species. Then, by natural selection, New Thought was spawned in the late 1800s, creating such reasonable philosophies as Science of Mind, Divine Science, Religious Science, and Unity. Lucky for me, I was born just before the last co-founder of Unity died, which enabled me to stumble upon the philosophy at a time when I was striving to develop my own. I was glad to discover that I did not need to reinvent the wheel when I discovered Unity. I am glad that you discovered it too, for it is only by discovery that anyone finds this philosophy. We of the Unity persuasion do not sell our teaching as if it were a religion, because, of course, it is not (thank God!).